Spencer, Herbert

Spencer, Herbert, 1820–1903, English philosopher, b. Derby. He projected a vast 10-volume work, Synthetic Philosophy, in which all phenomena are interpreted according to the principle of evolutionary progress. Together with Charles Darwin and Thomas Huxley he was responsible for the acceptance of the theory of evolution. In First Principles (1862), the first of the projected volumes, Spencer distinguished phenomena from what he called the unknowable—an incomprehensible power or force from which everything derives. He limited knowledge to phenomena, i.e., the manifestations of the unknowable. He maintained that these manifestations proceed from their source according to a process of evolution. In The Principles of Biology (2 vol., 1864–67) and The Principles of Psychology (1855; rev. ed., 2 vol., 1870–72) Spencer gave a mechanistic explanation of how life has progressed by the continual adaptation of inner relations to outer ones. In The Principles of Sociology (3 vol., 1876–96) he analyzed the process by which the individual becomes differentiated from the group and gains increasing freedom. In The Principles of Ethics (2 vol., 1879–93) he developed a utilitarian system in which morality and survival are linked. Spencer's synthetic system had more popular appeal than scientific influence, but it served to bring the doctrines of evolution within the grasp of the general reading public and to establish sociology as a discipline. His Autobiography was published in 1904.

Bibliography

See study by J. D. Peel (1971).

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Spencer, Herbert

(born April 27, 1820, Derby, Derbyshire, Eng.—died Dec. 8, 1903, Brighton, Sussex) English sociologist and philosopher, advocate of the theory of social Darwinism. His System of Synthetic Philosophy, 9 vol. (1855–96), held that the physical, organic, and social realms are interconnected and develop according to identical evolutionary principles, a scheme suggested by the evolution of biological species. This sociocultural evolution amounted to, in Spencer's phrase, “the survival of the fittest.” The free market system, without interference by governments, would weed out the weak and unfit. His controversial laissez-faire philosophy was praised by social Darwinists such as William Graham Sumner and opposed by sociologists such as Lester Frank Ward. Liked or loathed, Spencer was one of the most discussed Victorian thinkers.

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Spencer, Herbert 

Born Apr. 27,1820, in Derby; died Dec. 8,1903, in Brighton. English philosopher and sociologist; one of the founders of positivism.

Spencer was employed as a railroad engineer from 1837 to 1841, and from 1848 to 1853 he worked for the magazine The Economist. Spencer spent the greater part of his life as an armchair scientist. His philosophy developed the positivism of A. Comte, although Spencer disclaimed any dependence on Comte’s views. Spencer was also influenced by the agnosticism of D. Hume and J. S. Mill, Kantianism, F. W. J. von Schelling’s ideas on natural philosophy, and the Scottish school.

Spencer understood philosophy to be maximally generalized knowledge of the laws of phenomena. Thus, according to Spencer, philosophy was distinguished from the particular sciences purely quantitatively, by the degree to which knowledge is generalized. Spencer took as his starting point the division of the world into the Knowable and the Unknowable. In this sense, his philosophy can be understood as a simplified modification of the doctrine of I. Kant: the Knowable is the world of phenomena, and the Unknowable is the thing-in-itself. Spencer thought that science could come to know only the similarities, differences, and other relationships between sensory perceptions but was unable to penetrate the essence of phenomena. From this point of view, “matter, motion, and force are only symbols of the unknown real” (Osnovnye nachala, St. Petersburg, 1897, p. 466). For Spencer, the Unknowable appears as a “first cause,” whose existence both science and religion acknowledge (ibid., pp. 82–103).

In the theory of knowledge, Spencer developed the concept of transformational realism, asserting that sensations do not resemble objects; corresponding to every change in an object, however, is a definite change in the structure of sensations and perceptions. Spencer attempted to unite empiricism with apriorism, recognizing the a priori (self-evident) as physiologically established by the experience of innumerable generations of ancestors. According to Spencer, that which is a priori for the individual is a posteriori for the clan.

A specific feature of Spencer’s positivism is his doctrine of universal evolution, which was based on the mechanistic interpretation of the embryology of K. Baer, the geological studies of C. Lyell, the physical law of the conservation and conversion of energy, and Darwinism. Spencer sought to reduce the concept of evolution to the continuous redistribution of corporeal particles and their motion, integration, and disintegration. He attempted to subsume all phenomena—from the inorganic to the moral and social—under this mechanistic conception of evolution, asserting that the general tendency of evolution was toward equilibrium. Refusing to search for the causes of evolution, Spencer understood evolutionism as the simple description of observed facts. This is the source of the internal contradiction of his conception: the doctrine of evolution is not applied by Spencer to the sphere of essence, and in the sphere of phenomena the doctrine cannot claim to explain the lawlike regularities in the connection between the successive states of bodies. His theory of evolution could not explain qualitative changes in development. This was also clearly reflected in Spencer’s concept of biological evolution as the adaptation of internal relationships to external relationships for the purpose of maintaining existence (see Osnovaniia biologii, vols. 1–3, St. Petersburg, 1899).

Spencer was the founder of the organismic school in sociology. He believed that the class structure of society and the presence of various administrative agencies within society were analogous to the division of functions among the organs of a living body. He considered the basic law of social development to be the survival of the most adapted societies, and he deduced from his own conception of evolution the advantages and maximum fitness of “differentiated” society, that is, society divided into classes. He was an enemy of socialism, regarding revolution as a “disease” of the social organism.

In ethics, Spencer held to positions of utilitarianism and hedonism; morality, in his view, was linked to utility, the source of pleasure. Spencer’s aesthetic views combine various strains: Kant’s principle of purposiveness without purpose, F. Schiller’s conception of art as play, and utilitarianism, according to which that which was useful in the past is beautiful. Spencer’s psychology was one of the sources of psychophysical parallelism and genetic psychology. His pedagogic ideas were related to his advocacy of a utilitarian and natural science education. Spencer made an important contribution to the study of primitive culture. An exponent of the evolutionary school of cultural anthropology, he developed a theory of the origin and development of religious beliefs.

Spencer’s philosophy was the quintessence of the bourgeois liberal illusions of the Victorian (pre-imperialist) era in the history of England, summarizing the principles and achievements of mid-19th-century natural science. It enjoyed great popularity and had a great influence on empiriocriticism and neopositivism.

WORKS

Works, vols. 1–18. London-New York, 1910.
In Russian translation:
Sobr. soch., vols. 1–7. St. Petersburg, 1866–69.
Soch., vols. 1–7. St. Petersburg, 1898–1900.
Avtobiograftia, parts 1–2. St. Petersburg, 1914.

REFERENCES

Narskii, I. S. Ocherkipo istoriipozitivizma. Moscow, 1960. Chapter 4.
Bogomolov, A. S. Ideia razvitiia v burzhuaznoi filosofii 19 i 20 vv. [Moscow] 1962. Chapter 2.
Kon, I. S. Pozitivizm v sotsiologii. [Leningrad] 1964. Chapter 2.
Hudson, W. An Introduction to the Philosophy of H. Spencer. New York, 1894.
Royce, J. H. Spencer. New York, 1904.
Hãberlin, P. H. Spencer’s Grundlagen der Philosophic Leipzig, 1908.
Duncan, D. The Life and Letters of H. Spencer. New York, 1908.
Schwarze, K. H. Spencer. Leipzig, 1909.
Taylor, A. E. Herbert Spencer. New York, 1928.
Runmey, J. H. Spencer’s Sociology. London, 1934.
Peel, J. H. Spencer: The Evolution of a Sociologist. New York, 1971.

I. S. NARSKII